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Tuesday, July 08, 2014

Failed Arab States

Syria and Iraq are failed Arab states. Other failed Muslim States are Yemen, Libya and Somalia, to name a
few. Syria and Iraq were originally founded after WWI by France and
Britain, respectively. Contrary to Western perceptions they are not of ancient
origin. Their current disintegration highlights the mistakes that these
imperial powers made in cobbling together what they conceived as viable states.
But, they were based on the wrong criteria, instead of forcing different tribes,
ethnic groups and sects into one state in an attempt to enforce a national
uniformity, they should have separated them according to the basis of their
loyalty to their group. Thus, the Alawites, Sunnis and Druse should not have
been forced together into Syria and the Sunnis, Shia and Kurds should not have
been forced together into Iraq. The Middle East is currently suffering massively
from the stupidity and misconceptions of the former colonial
powers.

After the defeat of the Turkish Empire in WWI the Allied
powers, principally Britain and France, re-worked the map of the Middle East
according to their own interests, based on the secret Sykes-Picot Treaty that
they negotiated during the War. According to the Treaties after WWI of San Remo
(1920) and Lausanne (1923), that were ratified by the League of Nations, the
precursor to the UN, Britain was given Mandates for Palestine and Mesopotamia
(Iraq), and France was given a Mandate for Syria. It was understood that the
Mandate was a temporary occupation, with the intention that the local peoples
would be given self-determination. The Mandate for Palestine was, according to
the Treaty, assigned for the development of a Jewish Homeland, and Israel was
established at the end of the British Mandate in 1948. Pres. Wilson of the USA
rejected any American Mandate either for Turkey or Armenia. He argued that
since the US had not declared war on Turkey during the war the US would not be
involved in the Middle East and he was certainly against
colonialism.

But, it was not only the Colonialists who were at fault.
The Hashemite Sherif Hussein of Mecca, who was then the most powerful Muslim
leader, had two sons Feisal and Abdullah, and he signed agreements with the
British and French so that each would become King of an Arab Kingdom. But the
French (characteristically) reneged on their agreement, they separated Lebanon
from Syria to protect the Christian minority there, and they threw King Faisal
out after a short reign in 1920. The British under Colonial Secretary Winston
Churchill, to maintain good relations with Sherif Hussein, appointed Feisal
instead as King of Iraq, a country they invented. In 1922, Britain separated
Trans-Jordan illegally from the Palestine Mandate in order to satisfy the need
for a second Arab State and appointed Abdullah its King. Syria eventually
became an independent Republic in 1946 with the official end of the French
Mandate and Iraq became a Republic in 1958 with the violent overthrow of the
Hashemite Monarchy there. The Hashemites were also overthrown in Arabia by the
Saudis in 1932. Both Syria and Iraq were inventions of the fantasy of the
colonialists that they could carve up the Middle East according to their
whim. That proved to be far from reality and today Syria and Iraq are failed
states.

Syria under Pres. Assad now consists of ca. 40% of its
original area. Approx another 40% is controlled by ISIS, the extreme Sunni
Islamist group, that also controls ca. 40% of what was Iraq and that has
declared an Islamic Caliphate. The other ca. 20% of Syria is controlled by
other anti-Assad groups, including the so-called democratic opposition. A
similar situation exists in Iraq, the Shia-dominated government of Pres.
Mailiki controls only about 40% of what was Iraq, and the rest is under Kurdish
control in the north that will soon be declared an independent Kurdistan.
Those who seek to cobble Iraq back together again, like Pres. Obama, are like
Humpty Dumpty, attempting to do the impossible, it can't be done. Now the US is
doing what Pres. Wilson expressly decided against, playing the role of the
European colonial powers in the MIddle East. Give it up and let them fight it
out until they reach a conclusion. It may take years, but it's the only way.
Meanwhile we should sit on the sidelines, cheering them on.